Saturday, May 07, 2005

too much relaxation causes stress

For those of you wondering where I am, I have been on the lovely Queen Mary 2 for a number of days now. I have so much to say about so little that I don't really know where to begin...

My family and I boarded the ship on Wenesday afternoon in NY. Although we almost missed it due to the fact that my mom is convinced that the entire world runs on "Dominican time", luckily we made it. It was then, during the emergency drill, that my brother and I came to the realization that we were the only people under 30 aboard this massive vessel, and that it was going to be a very long week- which it has.

Now, I am not going to bash the ship because it really is impressive in terms of size and stature, and the food is amazing; however, it's not what they make it out to be. Somewhere in the catalogue they should have mentioned that this could very well be a floating retirement home.

Oh how I miss my Carnival ships!!!

Luckily though the elderly can be quite interesting and we have befriended a number of some very nice people with some really interesting stories. I met a really cool gentleman during lunch on Thursday who has been fixated on my mind since the moment I met him: He had planned on taking this trip with his wife for a number of years. Suddenly, she passed away. He came on this trip alone to honor her memory and to this day wears his wedding ring.

I also saw these two people who looked older than my grandma dancing. It was beautiful. You could just tell that they had been dancing together for a very long time.

These little things have made me hope that whenever I am that old, that I have someone like that: someone to dance with, someone who would push my wheelchair, and if I die, someone to honor my memory by fulfilling my dreams.

Anyway...

I haven't been out on deck since Thursday. The weather has been really uncooperative. Not only is it cold outside, it's so windy that I get thrown around like nothing. Yesterday, the tide was so high that I spent the better part of the day in bed seasick and today I was hesitant to get off the bed. Luckily, Stephanie talked me into rejoining humanity.

Stephanie is a girl I went to college with in Germany. As fate would have it, she works on this ship. I was super surprised. Although this isn't the first time that I've run into someone in a place totally random, it definitely is the weirdest place I have done so. But it works out fine because as she says, we make her job easier, and she keeps us amused :)

I am off to go have some tea and cookies (working on eating plenty of carbs!) with my family. Amazingly enough everyone is playing nice-That aspect of the trip I'm really enjoying...